Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice Movie Review

Note: There may be minor spoilers, but nothing not given away in the trailer.

Man, this movie is brutal. Not really in the violent way, more so in the it’s terrible and a complete waste of a good idea way.

Batman v. Superman is the follow up to 2013’s Man of Steel and the second movie in the “DC Cinematic Universe”. It takes us to the aftermath of Superman’s (Henry Cavill) battle against General Zod in Man of Steel and shows us the consequences of having this God-like figure on Earth. Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, (Ben Affleck) lost some close friends and co-workers during the fight and sees Superman as a threat that must be dealt with. However a scheme by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) forces them and Wonder Woman to put aside their differences to face a new threat. I spent 5 minutes writing that summary of the plot, which I think is more time than the people who wrote the movie actually spent on it.

Let’s knock out some things I liked about the movie first. It won’t take long. Ben Affleck as Batman. I was one of the only ones who thought from the moment he was cast, he was a great choice. He didn’t disappoint. He’s amazing as Batman, portraying a darker, grizzled version of the character. Not everyone will like this version of Batman. That I am sure of. I, on the other hand, did like it. The action scenes, when they happen, are great. They are fun and it was cool to see the heroes fight against each other, then join forces. The “Dawn of Justice” element to the movie was one I thought was going to feel forced, underdeveloped , and just crammed into the movie, and to a certain extent it was. However, it was actually the best and most interesting part of the movie, at least in my eyes. I liked Wonder Woman in this much more than I thought I would. The last third of this movie where all this takes place does its best to save this movie from being a complete travesty. I also thought the score was pretty good, particularly during the action scenes.

Let’s get on with the negatives. I’ll just say this off the top, this movie is a complete mess. The first 2/3 of this movie is downright terrible. Nothing happens, the plot doesn’t make a lick of sense, and things keep happening that aren’t being explained. My roommate, who I saw the movie with, and I kept looking at each other to see if the other person had any idea what was going on. We never did. It takes a solid hour and a half, at least, before any real “Batman v. Superman” or “Dawn of Justice” stuff starts to happen. The movie is just flat out boring at times for the first half. Jesse Eiesenberg wasn’t as terrible as Lex Luthor as I thought he would be. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t good in the role. I just thought he would be abysmal and instead he is just bad. The one character worse than him in the movie is Lois Lane (Amy Adams). The writers force her into the plot way more than she needs to be and she comes across as annoying and helpless.

Overall, this movie is extremely disappointing. Maybe my expectations were too high, but that has nothing to do with the poor writing and terrible directing and execution. Despite it being awful, it still has me looking forward to the Justice League movie and hopefully a bunch of Ben Affleck Batman movies, as long as they go forward with a different director. Zack Snyder can’t handle this. Honestly they should just pay Affleck as much money as he wants and have him direct the movies. That would get me in the theater for sure. This one, however, you don’t need to rush out to the theater to see. Honestly, you could probably show up halfway through and not be that lost. I promise you won’t miss much. This movie was riding at a below 2/5 score for the first two thirds of the movie. I did really enjoy the last third, so that salvages it a bit. I still can’t get it to a 3 and call this movie “good”, so Batman v. Superman gets a 2.75/5.

Like I’ve done before, if you want to talk spoilers, we can do so in the comments. So stay away if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

I didn’t understand them. That may be because I’ve never been a comic book reader, but that shouldn’t make a difference in a movie that should be accessible to the average movie goer. They were confusing, poorly edited, and messed with the pacing of the movie, in my opinion

Yes. They were related to the comic books in a oddly obscure way. If I were making a blockbuster like this, I would have made the references easier to understand for those who have not read the comics and know the backstory

Yeah. The one with his mother’s grave scared the bejeezus outta me. I think it would have been quite interesting if they incorporated the desert one into the plot because that was a cool scene but it made no sense as a dream

Yeah it is from one of the death of superman comics but did not fit in because they cut out some characters from the comic that made it work. Also the whole thing of creating doomsday was confusing. They changed it from the comics.

Gotcha. Yeah, seems like it was unnecessary to have in the movie then, especially as a dream. And yeah I didn’t really understand that either but by that point I was just glad something was finally happening